BBC News First

I was at work as the whole thing unfolded. N24 had first pics in under an hour. Pics were shown at about 00.57 before the weather at the top (which was needed for the presenter change). The first Ben McCarthy live was at 0130.

The poor old Sky News presenter looked a bit harassed. He did nearly 2 hours of non-stop phono, mostly with the same reporter. It looked a little tedious, and of course, all the time the reporter is on the phone, she couldn't go and find any new information.

Sky showed their first 'uncut' pictures during the 2am opening. These were more or less from the same position as the live pics the BBC were showing at 0130, only a little rougher - handheld DV stuff. By 2.10, Sky, like all the other news channels were on other news.

The other point to make of course is that Ealing is full of television hacks. I'm sure all the various media outlets were swamped with their own staff filing reports. BTW, All the BBC World news staff were on the way home to their Ealing penthouses by 0030, which is why World opted in to N24 as normal. I guess not such a big news story to warrant the massive extra cost of running an entire newsroom at that time of night when the domestic audience would be quite small anyway.

a) TVC is closer to Ealing than any of the other broadcasters HQ
b) Sky is in the middle of a relaunch
c) The BBC staffed more greatly than Sky overnight, as they operate the World Service and World which do not have an 'overnight' service. Whilst you may argue that Sky is an international channel it does have an overnight and is mainly a UK service.
d) The BBC probably bought, or at least one of the producers slipped that bloke a few quid, to make sure he didn't give his camcorder coverage to anyone else for a while - hence he was on both Five Live and News 24.

Sky always has problems with pictures in London - because their HQ isn't actually in London.
During the Paddington train crash the BBC and GMTV had pictures a while before Sky, but it didn't stop Sky winning News Event of the Year award for their coverage of it...

Sky were first in reporting the news and were the first to have a correspondent there, it took News 24 at least 30 or 40 mins to get itself sorted and start providing constant coverage and as soon as it was getting good they joined BBC World.

On the other hand there have been plenty of occasions where Sky had pictures before any other network, Kosovo being the obvious example when all the broadcasters actually had time to prepare for the coverage yet only Sky managed to construct decent, and consequently award winning, coverage of it.
Also during Mr Milosevic's arrival in The Hague. For 2 hours the BBC had their cameras on the prisons, expecting Milosevic's arrival.
They went to the weather and instead of cutting into the weather they left it on and went to trailers and during that time Milosevic arrived.
Sky on the other hand just stayed with it and had the live pictures of his arrival.

You can't expect them (Sky) to be first every time a story breaks, although in this case they were first to report the news... the 'Sky News First' slogan is the most stupid slogan I've ever heard and I do hope they scrap it.

Comedy moment of the night goes to:
ITN and CNN.
Because... ITN's senior news editor appeared on CNN International's 'CNN This Morning Asia' before he appeared on the ITN News Channel!

It is unfair (as I've said about ten times now) to compare the networks at the moment because Sky is in the middle of a relaunch!
They can't be expected to be performing as well as they normally would - least of all with breaking news.
Please can we wait 4 weeks before making any more comparisons?!

Sky is only in Osterley though, isn't it?! I don't think that's too far out! There'd be barely any traffic on the roads at night, either, so it wouldn't have taken much longer to get to Ealing than it would have done from TVC.

CheshireC - Re: the probability that the BBC gave the man money not to show his footage to anyone else. What footage? The one within the wine bar? Because GMTV was using that throughout this mornings transmission.

Okay, take this one step further then Chesh ...

Pick a neutral location - for example, Cirencester ... where Prince Charles had a nasty bump this afternoon ...

I was the FIRST reporter on the scene for any news organisation at the hospital...

Do I sound like I'm showing off here

Well, good for you being there first. Oh, and the Prince Charles incident has just been on BBC 6 O Clock News headlines at 18:55.

I remember the Selby rail crash. It was announced on GMTV at 8am by Penny Smith I think and the first person on the scene was Jon Hill from Yorkshire TV. He did a phone link for GMTV with Lorraine Kelly at about 9.05am.

Yeah, but Charles was on BBC at 6.10ish, I expect on 5 News as well... it's not major but he is heir to the throne so they are covering it high up as you would expect!

Yeah he would have given it out but it wouldn't have surprised me if he did ask the bloke to only give it out to the Beeb for a few hours, that happens all of the time.

Cirenwherever is not a neutral location though, not really. The BBC have hugely more resources across the UK than Sky, because of their local radio operations.
And I can't stand the royals anyway!

The Selby Crash was reported first on Sky but the Beeb were the first with a person there - again from local radio.

No idea who got pictures first because I left at 8am.

Steve, I didn't see it from the beginning you see.

If you say GMTV didn't break Selby until 8, then BBC & Sky beat them to it by about 3/4 hour!

I don't want to be drawn into a debate here, and I hadn't critisised Sky's coverage, but just recorded the facts. IMO Sky tried to mount rolling coverage with very limited resources and little to go on. They may have been better off reporting what they had got, carry on with the news and report new information as it came in.

The argument about location of TVC is weak because as pointed out, Sky is in West London too - not a lot further out than the BBC.

And the argument about the refit is weak too. Journalists, OB's, news crews don't need a lavish newsrooms or studios. Imagine if a huge story or royal obit broke during a major refit at the BBC. The country would be up in arms. It's all down to planning, and I am sure Sky are well organised too, and (unless anyone knows differently) Sky would say their output has not suffered during building work. It maybe more to do with the recent redundancies, cost cutting and scaling down at Sky - which is permanent.

If a bomb went off in the Middle East, I am sure that Sky would have pictures pretty quick, and not had two hours of a phono graphic and newsreader.

Must go - dinners getting cold!

Breakfast was actually first with the Selby Rail crash as BBC Radio Humberside was the first to be on the scene. Jeremy did an interview with BBC Radio Humberside's Phil Squire at around 0745am